


Boy On The Side

by camichats



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Breaking Up & Making Up, Children, Comfort, Communication, Established Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Past Abuse, Secrets, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 08:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18687808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camichats/pseuds/camichats
Summary: Jon thinks that things with Tormund are going really well, until one day he sees Tormund shopping with a woman and two kids that are obviously his.





	Boy On The Side

**Author's Note:**

> The 'past abuse' tag is mostly precautionary. Jon mentions a past relationship with someone who was gaslighting, manipulating, etc, but it's not very in depth.

Jon missed his family when he moved out, and while he still visited often, he was left feeling rather lonely in the day-to-day part of life. Until Tormund came into his life, a loud, boisterous man that wasn't afraid to throw Jon around a bit. Tormund spent most evenings at Jon's, claiming that his own place wasn't as homey. However, he always said that with a grin too wide to be honest, so Jon would laugh and say that's because he spent all his time here. 

They'd been seeing each other for several months now, and Jon thought it was weird that they hadn't done more than kiss. Tormund didn't seem like the type to wait around, which made it all the more surprising that he was the one to pull away every time, saying that he needed to be getting back. 

"Or you could stay," he said, the first time he'd had the balls to offer. "Bed's big enough, even for you." 

"Aye, I'd love to." He kissed along Jon's neck, prompting a full body shiver. "But I can't." 

"Can't? What do you mean 'can't'? If you don't want to-" 

"There's not a person on this fucked planet that wouldn't want to." He kissed Jon again, beard scraping against Jon's chin and putting so much passion in the kiss that Jon's toes curled. 

But then he left. 

Jon was equal parts confused and horny, but he waved goodbye when Tormund cheekily blew him a kiss. A bump in the road, that's all this was. 

* * *

"Arya," Jon groaned, "you are perfectly capable of shopping by yourself. Why do you make me come with you?" 

"For your cheery personality," she said drily. 

"You're not going to tell me, are you." 

"I need a second opinion, I thought it was obvious." 

"Why don't you bring Sansa along? Pretty sure her fashion sense is better than mine." 

"Maybe, but when else are we going to get time alone together? You hardly come round since you met your precious boyfriend." 

Jon startled. "How d'you know about him?" 

"Bran talks." 

"How does _Bran_  know?" 

Arya blinked at him. "I thought you told him." 

"I bloody well did not." 

"Oh," Arya said with an uncaring shrug. "Big bloke, yeah?" 

"Yeah, he's pretty big," Jon said, not thinking anything of it because Tormund was practically a wall all by himself, twice as thick as Jon and nearly half a foot taller. 

"You should invest in a better bed. I can't imagine your current one will be able to take much more abuse." 

Jon's face flamed, and he gaped at his little sister. Younger, but by no means more innocent _apparently_. "My bed's just fine," he grumbled. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye as she inspected the material of a coat, a victorious smirk on her face. "How's Yara?" 

She froze, then nodded slowly. "Alright, alright I'm dropping it. Happy?" 

"Yes. You're a little shit, you know that?" 

"It's why I'm your favourite." 

Jon looked aimlessly at various clothes, touching the ones that looked soft-- which usually ended in disappointment-- and taking the items Arya had picked out when her arms started to look full. They'd made their rounds of the shop, and now she was trying on the various articles of clothing, occasionally coming out of the stall to show Jon what it looked like. 

She had just walked back in after needing an opinion on a pair of short-shorts, and that's when it all went to shit. Jon heard a couple kids making some noise; not unusual by any means, but it made Jon glance over automatically to check on it. Instead of seeing a pair of strangers, he saw Tormund, a woman he didn't recognise, and the two children that he'd heard. The woman also had red hair, but there was no family resemblance between them that Jon could see. The children also had red hair, but that could mean anything, after all- 

"Daddy, she's being mean to me," one of them whined, tugging on Tormund's arm, and he responded, both to the touch and the name. 

"You both know better than this," he said, rolling his eyes and easily picking up the one that had spoken and placing her on the side opposite her sister. 

"I reckon they do," said the woman, "but then we get in public and they lose their minds. C'mon then, let's find those pretty dresses you wanted." 

"Don't take after you, do they?" 

She snorted. "They're like neither of us, hard to imagine where they came from." 

Jon whipped his head back around and stared very hard at his phone, but he didn't see a damn thing on the screen. Tormund had a family. Two bloody children, and a wife or girlfriend or whatever she was, and Tormund had spent evenings at Jon's snogging him like he had nothing better to do. That explained why he was always left before it was time to sleep, but not the lack of sex. Not that Jon _wanted_  to have fucked him now that it turned out he was a fucking cheater, but wasn't the point of a person on the side to get laid? 

"What about these?" Arya said, looking down at the new shorts she had on. 

"They look great," he said gruffly, wincing when he heard how obvious his emotions were in his voice. 

"Yeah I think they're alright," she said. She walked closer to him and asked in an undertone, "Do we need to leave?" 

He shook his head. 

"I'll finish trying on clothes then. I'm almost done." 

Jon pulled up twitter and was scrolling through it mindlessly, not even reading the words in front of him, just staring at a post then going to the next one. Arya came out of the dressing room a short while later, hanging up the rejects and throwing the others over her arm. 

"On your feet, my lord, it's time for checkout." 

"We're not in medieval times, Arya." 

"Says the man that paid for my sword fighting lessons." 

Jon grunted, too wrung out to make a quip. 

Because Arya was the best, she didn't ask him about it, didn't even mention it until she was dropping him off at his flat. "Let me know if need anything. Or want anything, like a buddy to get sloshed with." 

Jon nodded. "Thanks." He wanted to say something else, maybe apologise for being such bad company, but he didn't. He got out of the car and trudged up the stairs, reaching in his pocket for the key. Gods, he was such an idiot. He'd had a grand total of two relationships including Tormund, and it turned out that neither of them could really be considered as such. He was just Tormund's side dish, and with Alliser, the less said about that fucking train wreck the better. 

Instead of eating dinner, Jon filled up on chips, and time passed before he knew it. There was a knock on the door and he frowned. Had Arya decided that he needed company? If she showed up with a six pack, he knew he'd let her in. He'd let her in no matter what, but when she showed up with a six pack it meant they were going to watch a movie in silence. 

It wasn't until he opened the door and saw Tormund standing there with a grin that he remembered they'd had plans for tonight. And Jon had forgotten with his revelation, that as far as Tormund knew, everything between them was fine. "Missed you," he said, then stepped in and wrapped an arm around Jon, pulling him in tight for a kiss. 

Jon pushed at his chest, trying to shove him off, and wrenched his face to the side to break the kiss. 

Tormund's grip slackened in surprise, and Jon took the opportunity to pull himself free. "You okay?" 

"I'm fine," Jon said gruffly. 

"What's wrong?" 

Jon clenched his hands tightly at his side. He just wanted to be left alone, to try and deal with the bullshit he attracted no matter how well he thought things were going. "I was with Arya at the mall today. Saw you there." 

"Ah. You saw me and my girls." 

"Yes." 

"And you're upset." 

"Understatement." 

Tormund swallowed, still half-in/half-out of the doorway. If someone were passing by, they'd hear the entire argument. Jon didn't want that to happen, but he couldn't bear to welcome Tormund back into his space, knowing what he now knew. "I should have told you sooner," he admitted slowly, "but I didn't know how serious we were. No point in having that conversation if it wasn't going to last." 

"It doesn't matter. We're done; get out." 

"We're done," Tormund repeated flatly, like he didn't understand it. "Don't you think you're overreacting? I like you Jon, but you don't automatically trump my family, I thought you'd understand." 

"I don't want to see you again. Get. Out." Alliser had said something along the same lines when Jon got upset with him. Said he was overreacting and being dramatic and why couldn't he just calm down, it was only a little X, just a friend, a coincidence, nothing to worry about. 

Instead of arguing with him though, Tormund just stared at him for a moment before backing up and leaving the complex. 

* * *

Jon had well and truly thought that would be the last time he saw him. Until he found one of Tormund's massive plaid shirts in his laundry, then realised he'd have to return it, along with that record he'd borrowed, and the hoodie Tormund had all but given him when Jon said it was comfy. 

With a sigh, he gathered everything into a bag and checked the clock. It wasn't too late, but it also wasn't early enough that he would be interrupting dinner. Dinner with his _family_. Jon clenched his jaw. Tormund had friends, it's not like his wife would hit him for dropping off a few things if she happened to open the door. 

He walked down to his car, thinking that it was a miracle that he even knew where Tormund lived, considering that he'd never been invited over. He worked very hard on making sure he stayed calm the whole drive over, so he felt stable enough to pretend he was fine when he knocked on the door, bag held tight in his hand. 

Because Jon's luck was absolutely rotten, his wife was the one that answered the door. He wondered if maybe he should tell her, but this wasn't the place for that sort of conversation and he hadn't prepared for it. It would probably end with him getting smacked, so he'd keep it to himself, for a little while at least. "Er, hi I wanted to drop these off, they're Tormund's." 

She took it from him absently, staring like she was piecing something together. Her face lit up when she realized what it was. "You're Jon, Tormund's boyfriend! He's been so nervous about us meeting, gods only know why," she said, rolling her eyes. "Come in." She didn't wait for him to step inside, just grabbed his arm and pulled him in.

Jon wasn't particularly weak, but he would bet that she was a hell of a lot stronger than he was. He was also very, very confused. He wanted to ask what was going on, express his confusion in some way, but he was shocked dumb. 

She turned her head and shouted, "Tormund!" then turned back to Jon with a grin. "I'm Ygritte, I don't know what he's said about me, but they were all bloody lies." 

This... did not sound like any reaction a wife would have. Or a girlfriend, or even a casual bedmate. 

"If the big oaf had told me you were dropping by, you could've had dinner with us." 

"I was just dropping these off," he said weakly. 

Ygritte might have replied if they hadn't been interrupted, but that was when Tormund showed up. "Jon? What're you doing here?" 

"He said he was dropping this off," Ygritte said, shoving the bag against Tormund's chest and letting go so that he had to catch it or let it fall to the floor-- naturally, he chose the first option. "Which is rude, you should've introduced us ages ago before he got it set in his head that I'm a cunt." 

"I'm sure you're doing that well enough by yourself," Tormund replied by rote, peering inside the bag. When he saw what it was, his expression fell just that bit more. "I think I still have your book, I'll go grab it." 

"Go with him," Ygritte said, giving Jon a little shove when he didn't so much as twitch. He opened his mouth to protest but closed it again when she glared at him, making a little shooing motion with her hand. "Try to keep him busy for a while. Quiet though, eh?" She winked. 

Jon blushed and, for lack of anything better to do, followed Tormund like she had told him to. Tormund was picking up books, records, countless cd's, searching for the book on Dothraki culture that he'd borrowed from Jon months ago, reading it a bit at a time. He glanced up when he heard Jon came in, then went back to searching. "Sorry," he said gruffly. "I know it's in here somewhere." 

"That's okay," Jon said. Ygritte had made him suspicious, but this was the nail in the coffin of his stupid insecurity: Tormund was the only person living and sleeping in this room. "Ygritte's not your wife is she." 

"Fuck no," Tormund replied, still moving. Then he stopped and looked up at Jon. "Did you think she was?" 

"I-" Jon's flush increased. "You said 'my girls', I thought you meant all three of them," he said defensively. 

"You thought I was cheating on you." 

"No." At Tormund's raised eyebrow, he elaborated. "I thought you were cheating on _her_ , with me." 

"And that's better?" 

"Well... no." Jon ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "You were keeping me at arms length, you never told me about your personal life, what was I supposed to think?" 

Tormund nodded along in agreement. "Okay, you're right. I should've told you about my kids." 

"Why didn't you? Things were going great, you had to know that I wasn't going to buggering leave you just because you have children." 

"It's happened before. It's what I thought you did when I tried to talk to you about it." 

"Why didn't you tell me before that, though?" 

"Like I said, things were going well. We were taking things slow, and it was working for us." 

"I didn't _want_  to take things slow." Okay, admittedly Jon had been more than a little skittish coming out the gate, so slow had been perfect at first, but after he started falling for Tormund, slow didn't feel near as good. Maybe he should have come out and said that instead of assuming Tormund would pick it up. Jon blew out a breath. "I wish you felt you could trust me with it." 

"I knew that I could," Tormund admitted. "But I liked our relationship the way it was, I didn't want it to change." 

"...I think this is the longest conversation we've ever had about our relationship." 

"Means it was overdue." 

Jon swallowed, looking around Tormund's room. The closet was open, showing a wide array of hoodies, sweaters, and plaid shirts, and a single good coat for the winter. There was a small dresser tucked inside, with the handful of t-shirts he wore. It was the first time Jon was seeing his room, but it seemed familiar somehow. As if it was so completely _Tormund_  that he felt like he'd seen it a dozen times. "Can I have the hoodie back?" he asked, looking at the bag he'd put Tormund's things in. 

Tormund bent down and picked it up, fingering the material as he spoke. "That depends. Are we getting back together?" 

Jon nodded. 

Tormund tossed the hoodie at him, then barreled into him, hugging Jon so tightly that he lifted him off his feet. 

"Do I get to meet your kids? Maybe learn their names?" 

"Not tonight, but yes." He gave Jon a squeeze then set him down. 

Ygritte knocked on the open door, loitering at the edge of the room. "Everything okay?" 

"Yeah." 

"Good," she said, smiling. It struck Jon that she looked like a predator with that smile, lots of teeth, and she proved him right with what she said next. "Cause I've told the girls that you're staying the night with your friend and we'll be setting up a slumber party. Lots of loud music, gossiping, and games." 

"I'm not gonna make him-" 

"You should come over," Jon hurried to say. "It would give us a chance to talk." 

"Riiiight," Ygritte said, smile turning to something highly amused. "Go on and 'talk' all night long, I'm sure that'll keep you occupied." 

"Stop teasing him, he doesn't know you well enough to ignore you." 

Jon wanted to argue that, but he was mortified, clutching the hoodie to his chest. "How much did you hear?" he asked her. 

She held up her hands to show she meant no harm. "Only that you wanted to meet the girls properly. And I know you think I talked the girls into this," she said to Tormund, "but it was their idea. I just didn't tell 'em no this time. You need to talk-" she motioned between Tormund and Jon "-and you won't get that done here. So unless pretty boy here has work tomorrow, you should take care of that." 

"Didn't we agree not to meddle in each other's love lives?" Tormund asked pointedly. 

"Yeah but he showed up on my doorstep looking like a kicked puppy, what else could I do?" 

"I'm right here?" 

Tormund pat him on the head without looking, and Jon tilted his head up, frowning. 

"The puppy vibes are intensifying," she remarked. Tormund glared at her, and she backed out of the room. "I'm going, I'm going." 

He shook his head. "Sorry about her. You don't have to invite me over if you don't want to." 

"Well- ahem, it would be rather difficult for you to fuck me through the mattress if you stayed here." 

" _Fuck_ \- Jon- you- seven hells you're trying to kill me." 

"I can assure you that I'm not." Jon pulled the hoodie on, hugging himself. He hadn't even managed to give it back, but he'd missed it; it was so bloody comfy. And the fact that it was Tormund's sure didn't hurt. 


End file.
